


penelope in paris

by followsrabbit



Category: Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:35:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27866970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followsrabbit/pseuds/followsrabbit
Summary: Colin did not expect to encounter Penelope Featherington on his travels.
Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington
Comments: 22
Kudos: 474
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	penelope in paris

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ljparis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ljparis/gifts).



> Happy yuletide!! :)

Penelope Featherington closed her eyes as her plane took off. Her heart lifted along with it, straight from her chest to her throat. Very much in her throat. It seemed to rise higher and higher, beat harder and harder, with every second her plane continued its ascent, starting her journey from New York (where she had lived forever, where she had hardly ever left, where she had somehow never managed to escape her mother’s controlling grip, large a city as it was) to Paris. _Paris_. Paris, where no one knew her and she knew no one and, best of all, she would escape her mother for an entire semester.

_Bliss._

Gripping her journal tight in her lap, Penelope peered beyond the woman next to her to watch the blue sky spread wide open as the plane continued flying higher and higher. She could not believe she was on a plane by herself right now. No sisters, no mother, no anyone-who-knew-her.

And even though Penelope did not particularly like plane rides, let alone plane rides that lasted nearly eight hours, she felt freer on this one than she had in her entire twenty years of life so far.

She had expected this feeling to come when she started college two and a half years ago. Only… she had continued living at home in her family’s Manhattan apartment rather than moving into the dorms ( _why pay to live in a tiny dorm room_ , her mother had demanded, _when you can stay right here?_ ), and that had meant her mother remained an omnipresent force in her life. Commenting on her clothing each day. Tittering worry over the ‘freshman fifteen.’ Dismissing her every academic achievement with overblown disappointment that Penelope would not be rushing the same sorority her sisters had— _you’re a legacy_ , her mother would exclaim, _they can hardly reject you!_ She doubted it had ever occurred to her mother that Gamma Something Phi could want her for any other reason than her sisters’ membership. Could want her for _her_.

Grabbing the completely-oversized bottle of water she’d paid up for in the airport gift shop for the sake of hydration through an international flight, Penelope took a quick sip.

She had overloaded her schedule with a French and Creative Writing double major specifically for the sake of studying abroad in France. After all, her mother could hardly begrudge her this semester of freedom, when she had her faculty advisor’s ringing endorsement of how beneficial a semester in Paris would be for her course of study. And if that had not fully convinced her mother, well… the appeal of bragging to her friends about her daughter’s ‘semester of French culture and refinement’ must have done the rest. As soon as Violet Bridgerton had mentioned how delighted she was to hear from Eloise that Penelope would be studying abroad in Paris, her mother had taken equal delight in claiming full credit for the idea (even while guilting Penelope with long sighs and mournful wonderings of how she would manage without her).

But that was done. None of it mattered anymore. Even if her mother visited—which she had promised or threatened, depending on one’s viewpoint—such a trip would not take place until the spring, when she could tell all her friends how truly wonderful Paris was in springtime. Her mother did not believe _Paris in winter_ merited the same boasting.

 _Stop thinking about your mother._ She shook herself—apparently too hard because the cap for her water bottle promptly went bouncing to the floor, down the aisle, and under seat the seat diagonal to her.

Oh no. She looked down at her almost-full, almost-liter of water. Cap-less water. Too big to safely sit in her seatback pocket without the threat of spilling absolutely everywhere, too full to sit on her seatback table without toppling over and, once again, spilling absolutely everywhere.

Taking a deep breath, Penelope prepared herself for a very, very long sip.

This was what came of dwelling on her mother! No more. That would be a rule for the semester. She would not allow Portia Featherington into her head a moment more than strictly necessary, such as when speaking to her on the phone or composing an email.

Another breath. Another session of water-chugging. _This_ was the sort of thing that happened to the old Penelope Featherington. Clumsiness. Poor luck. But in Paris, she could be anyone she wanted. Maybe even the witty, confident, well-dressed person she had always felt she might become if only given a fresh start.

(A French start?) (Perhaps best to not to incorporate puns into her new self.)

A heavy sigh slipped from her lips. Would she _ever_ finish this bottle of water?

* * *

_Three Months Later_

* * *

If asked, Colin Bridgerton would say that he enjoyed plenty of things about Paris. The architecture, the wine, the fashion, the language, the metro, the women, the artwork, the etcetera.

If pressed, Colin Bridgerton would admit that, primarily, he enjoyed the food. No, enjoyed was too tame a word. Cherished. Colin cherished the cuisine of Paris—the steak frites, the baguettes, the croissants, the crepes, the macarons, the croque monsieurs, the croque madames, the soufflés, the pain au chocolats, the chocolates, the escargot, the coq au vin, the onion soup, the omelets served with frites and salade. And the cheese! How had he nearly forgotten to mention the cheese? An injustice he best remedy with a trip to the nearest fromagerie.

Granted, he _was_ currently sitting in a randomly selected bistro in the Latin Quarter, which surely had plenty of cheese-rich dinners on its menu. Onion soap. Yes. That would do quite well. With a side of frites. And then a dessert of some kind. _Which_ dessert, however, was the question…

So absorbed was he with his dinner order that Colin almost missed the girl sitting on the other side of the bistro. Alone, scribbling in a notebook. Much like him.

Red hair. He knew that red hair.

“Penelope Featherington?” he murmured, though she would hardly hear him across the room. An instant of surprise, and then the remembrance that, oh yes, Eloise _had_ mentioned her friend was studying abroad in France in one of her many letters. But that had been ages ago. He had not known he would be in Paris at the same time. He had only decided to get the train from Amsterdam to Paris a week ago. Spontaneity, he believed, was half the joy of travel (the other half, of course, being the food).

Shaking his head, he stood and made his way over to her table. Eloise would never let him hear the end of it if he told her he had gone to Paris and not seen her closest friend. But more than that… it was nice to see a familiar face. It was nice to see _Penelope’s_ face. Somewhat surprising how nice, considering how little thought he had given her since their last encounter. Eloise’s nineteenth birthday party. That would have been it.

“Bonjour,” he murmured when he reached her small table. “Actually, bonsoir.”

Penelope’s head snapped up from her notebook, her pen falling between its open pages. “Colin?”

“Surprised to see me?”

* * *

Penelope looked up at Eloise’s elder brother—her childhood crush, her teenage crush, her _always_ crush—and tried not to sputter. The new Penelope did not sputter. The new Penelope was supposed to smile charmingly and give some sort of enchanting retort at a second’s notice, as though she weren’t utterly thrown.

Colin was standing beside her table. In Paris. In her favorite bistro. Colin was in Paris.

“Have I shocked you speechless?” he teased. “Taken your breath away?”

 _Yes_. Pulling a smile together, Penelope exhaled an almost-laugh. “Colin,” she repeated. “Eloise didn't tell me you were in Paris.”

There. That was a coherent observation. Hopefully, she did not have red wine teeth.

“That would be because Eloise doesn't know,” he said, sliding into the seat across from her, already at home. Colin had always had that way about him. Everything she’d worked so hard to obtain—confidence and a quick wit and _ease_ —he had possessed in spades for as long as she’d known him.

“That, I find hard to believe.”

“My sister,” he lowered his voice, as if to confide in her, “only believes she knows everything.”

“Shall I tell her you said that?”

“Eloise is not quite so threatening an ocean away.”

“Shall I tell her you said that?”

Colin hesitated. “No.”

She smiled. “It’s good to see you, Colin.” She meant it. Not only because he was giving her that crooked smile of his and wearing his chestnut hair in that disheveled way of his and looking at her with those glinting green eyes of his. Not only because she had loved him since the first time she had seen him in Central Park, walking with his brothers, so smiling and kind, even when she had tripped directly into him.

But because, as much as she had loved her first few months in Paris, she did miss New York sometimes. The good parts of New York anyway. And Colin, with his classic Bridgerton looks, embodied a lot of the good parts.

“Good enough that you would allow me to dine with you, mademoiselle?”

Yes. _Yes._ Please, yes. But what she said was, “Bien sur, monsieur.”

It was easier, she thought, to feel charming in French.

And then he was sitting across from her, calling “sil vous plait” to the nearest waiter, then ordering a bowl of soup and an order of frites and a glass of wine. And a dessert menu.

“So tell me, Penelope Featherington,” Colin said, leaning forward to lock eyes with her. _Oh_ , his green eyes. “Why Paris? Out of everywhere in the world?”

She blinked. She had expected him to ask how she was liking Paris, how she had been doing, how Eloise was doing. Very few people, she supposed, considered the world as wide open for the taking as Colin did. As if she could have gone anywhere she liked.

“Well, I’m a French and Creative Writing double major,” she said. “So it made the most sense. I've gotten so much more fluent just over the last few months. And, I mean, it’s _Paris._ When you think of all the famous writers who have lived here...”

“I didn’t know you were a writer,” he started.

Why would he? She had collected countless facts about him over the years, but he would hardly have done the same with her. There wasn't any reason he should have known her major.

“Sometimes,” she said, flushing. “For my university paper mostly. Nothing you would have seen.” A gesture to the journal tucked underneath his arm. “And you? What are you writing?”

“Oh, nothing in particular.” Did he look a bit flustered? No. Impossible. Colin Bridgerton did not get flustered.

"That is a very nice journal for someone not writing anything in particular,” she heard herself say. She flushed again. Was she _challenging_ Colin?

“I think,” he remarked, “Eloise has rubbed off on you.”

“Thank you.”

Colin stared at her a moment. Then he set his leather journal upon the table. Then he exhaled. “I keep a journal when I travel. Nothing so interesting, I’m afraid.”

Penelope doubted that. She had to believe that anything Colin wrote would be extremely interesting. Suddenly, she heard herself saying as much. “Really? I imagine you would have wonderful observations about all your travels. You travel more than anyone I have ever met. And you hardly need me to tell you how witty you are.”

“Don’t I?” the reply wasn’t as easy as his usual. He looked slightly… disarmed.

Why would that disarm him? “Everyone who meets you tells you exactly that. You must know they’re right.”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally opened it again to say, “Thank you.”

“I was actually a bit surprised when I realized you don’t keep a travel blog,” she admitted. She could confess that without revealing the time and effort she had put into stalking him online to see if he blogged about his constant travels, couldn’t she? “I’m sure plenty of people would read it.”

“And you, Penelope Featherington? Would you read it?” He had regained his charming, crooked smile. All was right in the world, it seemed.

“Occasionally,” she said. “A post or two at least.”

He blinked again. As though she was surprising him. She hoped she was. The Penelope Featherington he had encountered before, the agonizingly self-conscious girl in the blaring colors selected by her mother, was not the Penelope she considered herself now.

Whatever he might have said next was swallowed by the arrival of his food.

(And hers.)

(But mostly his.)

* * *

It struck Colin, with some surprise, that he did not want the evening to end.

He had imagined he would enjoy dinner with Penelope well enough, spend time enough charming her to satisfy his mother and sister when he next checked in, and then be on his way, _enough_ accomplished. The Penelope of his memory was pleasant but not incredibly invigorating company.

That seemed to have changed. Of course it had changed. The Penelope of his memory was a child, a teenager. They had only interacted a handful of times since she and Eloise graduated from high school, and always briefly, never alone.

This was possibly their first time interacting without the buffer of his sister, in all the years he had known her. He had not expected to enjoy it so thoroughly.

“So tell me, mademoiselle,” he said, mock serious as they strolled out from the bistro, “what must I see during my week in Paris?”

She rolled her eyes. “This is not your first time in Paris. You and Eloise have been vacationing here since childhood.”

“Yet I have never had a student to guide me through the Latin Quarter.”

“I am sure you could play tour guide far better than I could.”

Colin pondered this. “I don’t suppose you’d like a tour through the clubs of Paris?” However much Penelope had grown into herself, he very much doubted she had begun frequenting clubs.

Another surprise—the image that next filled his mind: Penelope in a club. It would be easy in a club to pull her body against his and kiss the liquor from her lips. He had done so in any number of cities with any number of women before. But his brain did not seem to want to conjure any number of cities or women at present. Only here. Only her. Penelope. _Penelope_.

He shook his head slightly, and refocused on the girl in question.

“I tried clubbing when I arrived,” she was admitting. “And in New York with Eloise. It doesn’t seem to suit me in either city.”

“It gets old,” he admitted. All those nights and dance floors and drinks blended together eventually. And that had to be a sign that life had grown less interesting, when it lost its focus.

“So,” she lowered her voice, as if confiding in him, “does you pretending clubs are all you know of Paris. You travel too much for that.”

Penelope had quite a bit of faith in him. Penelope was also not entirely wrong; however…

“Have you tried Le Relais de l’Entrecote?" he started. She had asked for it. "They only serve steak frites, and they bring as many servings of French fries as you want. Utterly tourist-y but worth the line. And there’s this incredible crepere in Montmartre—I’ll give you the name, but only if you go after climbing Sacre Coeur. If you haven’t yet already. Have you? No? Don't tell the Eiffel Tower, but I think it the better view of the city. And with a shorter line.”

…did she truly wish him to ramble on about food? About famous churches and sights she had no doubt found herself already?

“I haven’t climbed Sacre Coeur yet,” she admitted. “But I would for the name of your favorite creperie.”

“Ah, but would you order sweet or savory?”

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth as she considered this. Colin snapped his eyes away from said lip.

“Both?”

“That,” he said solemnly, “was the correct answer.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

She had a beautiful smile. Had she always had such a beautiful smile?

“Your turn,” he said, once silence had stretched between them a moment. He could have used that silence to end the night; she might have intended to. But what fun would that be? “Play tour guide for me.”

Wide eyes. Trepidation. “Now?” Excitement? He hoped he saw excitement too.

“Now.”

 _And_ she was chewing on her lower lip again. Good god.

“A bar then?” she asked finally.

Curious relief settled through him. “I can think of nothing I would enjoy more.” He should not have taken it as a given that she wanted the night to continue as much as he did—but he was glad she did.

“Ever the charmer,” she teased.

“I’ll have you know,” he said, teasing the truth, “that I spoke with the utmost sincerity.”

* * *

“Have you been here before?” Penelope asked once they were seated in a somewhat cramped corner of a fairly crowded café. Silly of her to ask. Surely he would have frequented all of Paris’s most famous literary landmarks by now.

Colin looked around. How _surreal_ to be seated at a table with Colin Bridgerton for the second time in one night. To be in a café with Colin at all. “Years ago, I think."

Of course he had. Les Deux Magot was famous. “Camus and Saetre and Simone de Beauvoir used to write here,” she said. “That’s her picture hanging above my head, actually. Sitting in this exact seat, writing at this exact table.”

“Forgive me,” he murmured in a show-whisper, “but I never finished the _Second Sex_.”

Penelope blinked. "You're forgiven?"

He waved that off. “I was apologizing to the ghost of de Beauvoir. I doubt you care whether I've read famous French feminist tomes.”

“It keeps me up nightly actually,” she said, forcing herself not to stare at his crooked smile. Oh, that _smile_. 

"In that case, you have my sincerest apologies. I shall make haste to Shakespeare and Company to correct the situation.”

“Mock all you like, I thought you might appreciate the history. Writer that you are.”

Colin shifted. She had never seen him look so nervous as he did discussing his writing, and she could not fathom _why_. He was brilliant. Anything he wrote would be brilliant.

But then… her heart had gone crazy with nerves each week it came time to share her work in last semester’s writing workshop, so maybe she could understand. Colin just seemed beyond such anxiety.

“I must enlist you to keep a secret,” he said finally, mock serious once more.

“Oh?” On second thought, he didn't seem so mock serious. Just... serious. But what secret could he ask _her_ to keep?

“If you could refrain from telling Eloise of my writing, I would very much appreciate it.”

“Eloise? But why? No one could be more encouraging.” He had to know that.

A grimace. “Too encouraging. She would want to read it all, and I—well, I have not shown my writing to anyone before. You're the only person I've even told of it.”

Penelope found herself at a loss for words, despite the number of replies queuing on her tongue. Namely: _why?_ and _why not?_ and _why me?_ Most frequently the latter. Why would Colin choose to confide in her?

But all she said was, “I won’t say a word.”

She supposed the _why_ did not matter. He had confided in her, and warmth was already spreading through her chest, even though she had only had one glass of wine tonight. Even though the night was rather chilly, and her arms were still goosebump-prickled from their walk.

Colin smiled at her.

“In exchange,” she started, unable to believe she was saying this, “would you tell me about something you’ve written?”

Quiet from Colin. Had she stepped too far? Would he ask what right _Penelope Featherington_ had to hear his innermost thoughts, ones he kept private from even his lovely, lovely family?

But no, when Colin spoke, it became clear that contemplation had made him quiet. “Have you been to Annecy?”

A shake of her head.

“It’s a five or six hour train hour from Paris—or an easy driving distance from the airport in Geneva, but I would travel by rail if you haven’t here yet. You see so much more. And wait until summer to go if you can. The water is so blue, you’ll think you’re in a fairytale. When you see it, you’ll know why it’s called the ‘cleanest lake in Europe.”

“A good place to go swimming?”

“Oh, the best for swimming. The best for sailing. And then you can spend a few days in Geneva. Fly back from there.”

A blush colored Penelope's cheeks—she had still not outgrown that; the curse of red hair—as she tried not to imagine swimming there with Colin. Sailing there with Colin. Being there with Colin.

“When I say the best,” he added, “I am of course speaking hyperbolically. The _best_ swimming and sailing are in Greece.”

She leaned forward, careful not to knock over her recently-arrived wine with her arms. “Will you tell me about Greece?”

“I haven’t bored you yet?”

She should tease, but earnestness broke from her throat again. “Your travels are the farthest thing from boring.”

He blinked. He smiled. He began speaking again. She didn't need to travel to Annecy to feel like she'd fallen into a fairytale.

* * *

It was nearly midnight, Colin Bridgerton was strolling on a bridge over the Seine with Penelope Featherington, and he wanted to kiss her. Persistently. Recklessly.

There were any number of reasons not to. She was his sister’s best friend and his mother’s favorite and altogether a part of his life. Not a nameless woman in a vast city he would never see again.

Nevertheless, his gaze kept falling to her lips. In his mind, he kept pushing her red hair out of her face and covering her lips with his. In his mind, she tasted like the red wine and the chocolate éclair she’d ordered at the café. He loved eclairs. He loved chocolate. He loved red wine. He loved tonight.

When he paused to peer over the bridge’s rail at the moonlit river, Penelope took only a few more steps before realizing he’d stopped. Then a few steps back to join him.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Stunning.” He stared at her. How had he never noticed how stunning she was?

How, he wondered as he lowered his lips to hers, had he never considered kissing her before?

* * *

Penelope had frozen.

Penelope would very much like to un-freeze.

Penelope had absolutely no concept of how to do that.

This was a moment she was going to want to remember forever, a moment she was going to want to have participated in, but she could barely move. Colin Bridgerton was about to kiss her. She was sure of it. And she could barely move, barely _breathe_.

“Penelope,” he murmured. “I’d like to kiss you.”

She stared up at him, transfixed by his green eyes. The moon, full and luminescent as it loomed in the sky, had absolutely nothing upon Colin’s eyes.

“Penelope,” he said again, breath so very close to her face. “Can I kiss you?”

She felt herself nod before she knew what she was doing. Before all the reasons she should say no could shudder through her head. She did not want to say no. She really, really, really did not want to say no.

Despite all the reasons she should. Despite her secret. The secret being: she had never been kissed. Twenty-years-old, and another pair of lips had never touched hers. Not even a peck. Her cheeks heated, even though Colin could not possible know what she was thinking. Not even Eloise knew her secret, though she might suspect.

Penelope had not dated at all in high school, after all—too shy, too shrouded in the horrible, unflattering orange and yellow sweaters her mother would buy for her, too mortified by any scrap of attention she received. And then in college… well, she had assumed she would kiss _someone_ when she got to college. Only, living at home, she didn’t meet people the way she’d hoped she would. She rarely went to parties. She had fantasized about meeting someone elsewhere, _connecting_ with someone elsewhere—in a writing class, maybe. But the longer she went without being kissed, the more embarrassed about it she became, the more the kiss had to mean, the more pathetic she felt. Eloise had never had a boyfriend either, but she had at least kissed a boy. Several boys. All lackluster experiences apparently, but nevertheless _experiences._

Penelope had no experiences.

Opportunities had arisen—a cute boy in her Fiction Writing class last semester had asked her out to coffee. And she had met a guy or two in Paris with whom she really thought _something_ could happen. But what if they could tell that she had never been kissed? What if she kissed like a girl who had never been kissed and they laughed at her? What if they thought being a twenty-year-old girl’s first kiss was just too much pressure and freaked out?

Clearly, she had overthought the matter.

She was overthinking now.

She really had to stop overthinking now. Colin was so close, and his eyes were all hooded and hungry and _on_ her. His hands were on her too now, wrapping around her hips, and his forehead had just slanted down to touch hers, and his lips…

Closing her eyes, Penelope relaxed into his arms, into his kiss. His lips were so soft yet insistent against hers. Demanding. In this moment, in any moment really, Penelope thought she would give him anything at all he demanded. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she threaded her fingers through his hair. _Oh_ , she had always loved Colin’s hair. She loved being able to touch it now. She had never thought she would, outside her fantasies.

She broke for a breath that turned into a gasp that turned into yet another kiss.

He swallowed the small moan that broke from her lips.

Kissing, as it turned out, was somewhat intuitive. Nothing that should have made her fear failure for all this time. And Colin was _good_ at it. Penelope might not have any experience with—well, with any of this, but she could tell that. His chin kept prodding hers, and his tongue kept brushing hers, and he kept taking more from her. And she kept giving it. Moving her lips against his, harder now, she took everything she wanted right back. Namely, him. Colin, Colin, Colin.

She did not realize she had murmured his name into his lips until he pulled back to arch an eyebrow at her. “Yes, Penelope?”

Now was the point when she was supposed to flush. Stammer. Remember that this was Colin Bridgerton, New York society darling and her best friend’s older brother and altogether out of her league, because she was Penelope Featherington. No further explanation needed.

“Don’t stop,” she murmured instead.

Within a second, she could feel his smile, the crooked one that had always made her heart throb so, on her cheek. Her jaw. Her throat.

“I would not dream of it.”


End file.
